FallsApart

mattm - It was pretty fantastic. Grinning stupidly the whole race, and even moreso afterwards. Got caught in those freak showers yesterday afternoon on the way home (just after the 3/4's started - poor guys) and was still beaming. Seward is awesomely run, though, and your blog encouraged me to pull the trigger on showing up, so thanks!

I'm going to try to sign up for the Volunteer crit, for sure. I'm hoping to get in as close to a full season this year so I can work my way towards Cat4, and perhaps jump on one of the local teams. Are you on Second Ascent or Recycled Cycles? Both seem like good guys, and I saw both out yesterday.

Hida Yanra

mattm & I are both on RCR, come by the tent at Volunteer Park and say hi!

mollusk

I finished Webster-Roubaix. No Cadillac, steak-knives, $'s, or podium.

fordfasterr

cool =)

Hida Yanra

Cold, super windy TT done, windy and chilly RR to come shortly.

Caad 8

Did my first TT. Didn't have tt bike or aero bars. Forgot rollers to warm-up on. Got last place in my cat 4/5. But beat some of the women and old folks.

badhat

chillin in urgent care w teammate who went down on the final corner at koppenberg. he was workin to keep his overall and the insane tailwind yanked his bike out from under him. he still took 5th.came straight to to the hospital and the shot him up w morphine for the cleaning of his hip. as he was signing out he passed out on the floor and had to be taken back to his bed and fed before we can leave.

my race was uneventful: some doof went down in front of me on the first run up the "hill" (200m of rutted dirt at 17%) and i never caught the pack. wind was too gruesome to justify a killer all out effort on the dirt, so i worked w a couple of halfhearted chases and just tried to get a decent workout.

ZeCanon

Bailed on Koppenburg. 40mph wind and dirt, and me not having a back up bike to race right now = not worth it. If I break this bike they likely won't give me another one. Wasn't a race I was going to do particularly well at anyway most likely, though it would have been really fun without the wind. Wind and my 138lbs just don't get along.

Crit in Golden tomorrow.

ZeCanon

oh yeah, nail in the coffin for me was when the port-o-potties blew over. Eff that.

OC Roadie

Santiago TT
Woke up not feeling fresh or fast. Got a pretty good warm-up and starting to feel a little better. Started off way too hard on the bike trail, kept seeing the power around 360 and trying to calm down, but it would work back up. Climbed Cook's pretty well and had a split time of 14:45 to the second hump on the saddle. This should have meant I was on track to a pretty good time, thought for sure I'd crack my goal of making into the 26's, all it meant was I'd gone too hard. I had a hard time keeping the power up after cresting the saddle and came up half a minute shy of my goal with a time of 27:31, for 3rd (which was far behind 1st and 2nd) in the 30+. Average power for the TT was 314w, which I'm pretty happy with, I was targeting 320w. Tied my personal best 20 minute power of 318w. All in all, pretty happy, considering I'm coming back from a broken collarbone and surgery a few weeks ago. Esammuli had another smoking time in the 25's.

Grumpy McTrumpy

third Johnny Cake race. seven times up the hill. race of attrition. after six times we got it from 70 down to 40 people. My plan was to let the attrition happen and then see what was left on lap 7.

halfway through lap six they stopped us dead for ten minutes to get passed by the P123s. So much for the race of attrition. pack finish. No room to attack.

mollusk

It hurt like hell and I gave up a BUNCH of places to help a teammate get $'s. None of the places I gave up were podium or $'s, though, so no big deal. I gave up Florida Points Series points, but I can't race enough weekends for that to matter.

I guess this can happen when you race like an idiot early and it has combined fields. My teammate up the road was in a different race, but we started together so it was legal to work for my teammate either positively or negatively. Most of my work was negative. I "popped" a large number of competitors while simultaneously keeping my group from bridging up with other competitors.

F'king dirty work.




Actually I love it.

kudude

copperopolis, e4.

3 laps, made it through the first lap with the group (minor victory) dropped 1/2 up the 2nd time up the climb (sad face) flatted while TT-ing in the IAB over a pothole.

Good workout. I'm happy with my progress although if I stayed with the group on the 10 minute climb, it just probably means they were going slower, not that my climbing has improved

Cleave

Hi,

Set a PR by a few SECONDS. Was shooting for 29:00 (fast for me) and hoped that I wouldn't be over 30:00. Ended up with a 29:39 which was good enough for 11th (out of 18) in the Masters 50+.

mike868y

Congrats! PRs are always fun to set.

No RR for me - I have family commitments both days this weekend (I've missed far too much family stuff b/cuz of mx - I'm ready to relax and actually live a life outside of sports, etc.).

BUT - the team took a big win at Plainville. Team leader (not sure of his "official" title) won the 2-3-4 by a reportedly large margin. And we took both primes. We may be a new team, but after this and Aki's win last weekend, we are starting to put in some results (no thanks to me )

ldesfor1@ithaca

Chris Hinds Memorial Crit in RI.
P123 (I am 3)
90'
course is pan flat. an abandoned but well maintained go-kart track. 1 mile and 5 corners. Not technical, but a course that makes you pay if you cant find the right lines.
Huge headwind on the back straight. As it's a few miles from the beach, it's always super windy.
Adam Myerson (Team Mountain Khakis) was in attendance. Marked.

race report: super hard!!

I hate this race. It always hurts so badly beacuase I am a wuss and I dont understand the lines to pick. Many guys do, they make me pay and make me their bi tch.

I spent the first half of the race trying to get in "the" break. No go. No one playing nice. I did work hard though.

then I tailgunned for a while trying to figure out the best lines. Fail.

then for the final 20' I just went into TT mode and got some camera time for the sponsors. good workout, but I was quite aware that it was nothing more. The winning break was away and I had nothing better to do. It was actually easier to be on the front than on the back.

here's the numbas:

16.2% / 20' of the race was in my AWC zone (440watts or more).

18.0% spent @ 0 watts... coasting. Pretty efficient, for me.

17 spikes over 10 w/kg (870w)

Whole race:

Chris Hinds P123 crit:
Duration: 1:28:16
Work: 1516 kJ
TSS: 125.9 (intensity factor 0.925)
Norm Power: 336
VI: 1.17
Distance: 37.157 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1346 286 watts
Cadence: 39 141 102 rpm
Speed: 3.2 32.6 25.3 mph

and the final 21', where I spent some nice time on the front in the IAB's... just getting a workout (for future races when I have a ice cube's chance in hell of getting a result):

Final 21 minutes:
Duration: 21:19
Work: 398 kJ
TSS: 32.4 (intensity factor 0.956)
Norm Power: 347
VI: 1.11
Distance: 8.951 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 891 311 watts
Cadence: 59 141 104 rpm
Speed: 18.3 33.8 25.2 mph

was pleased that deep into a tough crit I still had some legs left.

-L

bostongarden

I like the attrition strategy!! On average, it will work

Good stuff, right? I'm confused.

Improvement nonetheless

Congrats!

Beast. I suspect that you'll be putting down some pain tomorrow.

Bullseye

I think everyone I talked to about Koppenburg talked about someone falling down on the hill in front of them, causing them to lose the front group.

I dropped by the course, did a little watching of guys go up the hill, then had a run at it myself; it was hard enough to do once outside of a racing situation, and I almost crashed a few times. go me.

edit: here's a more obscene photo:

https://picasaweb.google.com/303cycli...59305937152850

Hida Yanra

Dbl post

Hida Yanra

12.5 mile TT and then a 47 mile RR.
30° & 25mph winds... it started snowing and hailing right before the RR. not quite sideways, but within a few degrees of horizontal.
All rollers with scads and scads of wind. One wall of a hill 9 miles from the line.

First race in the 4s... hardest race of my life to date.

Another RR tomorrow morning. The forecast is cold and windy tomorrow, but no more spit.from.the.sky

Caad 8

Did you see me? I showed up last and was the only person not warming up...

Cleave

Hi,

I may have seen you. If you were the last person to start, I remember seeing you just after you finished. I think you said to someone, something about be the last starter. I think you were on a red bike.

badhat

it does have the whiff of fishstory, but seriously, there were 64 4s on the line, and i would say we were at least 40 strong atthe first run up the hill. the headwind on the dirt was so nasty nobody wanted to do any work and we were dragging ass until about 2-300 yards before the hill. so yeah there were like 10 people who made it up, 20 people OTB before the hill and the rest of us doin runups an trying to put together chases.

i regret that i didnt have a chance, betwen living an hour away, and the bad weather/conditions, to get in a scouting trip, cuz i think it would have put my mind at ease in terms of what to expect from the hill, but at the same time i dont think it would have made much a different to my race, cuz of the carnage everywhere. the one time i nearly made it up without a pileup, i was on a decent line, but it was really narrow and a hard gust hit and theres just nothing you can do at that point. youre already crawling up, the wind hits you and you correct w your front wheel and your line is gone. so whatever, lesson learned. every starting line is a chance to learn something, and an opportunity to be less nervous next time. really really glad i switched to treaded shoes and spds though. that run up would have been hell without tread.

my race data confirms that i didnt realyl give a f*** after the first lap. HR averages considerably lower than an average wednesday night training ride. got a good interval workout but definitely not in it to win it.

results posted last night and i was feeling like a lame-o for finishing 30/45. cuz in the back of my head, even though i sorta gave up i was hoping to be at least top half.

then i looked at the race stats this morning and realized i was 30/45 finishers, but there were 64 starters. so my top half finish is in tact. heh

there were a crazy number or DNFs in every category. even pro-1-2 had 32 starters and only 20 finishers.

rough day.

ridethecliche

There's a really funny picture from that where a jamis guy fell over and has this huge smile on his face, and then a garmin guy hits him and falls over as well.

go4gr8

First criterium of the year held by Southern Maine Cycling Club. lotsa a fun! that means i got dropped and went two laps down. But don't care because i haven't been on the bike all that long this year and it's my first race since 18 years ago! My form will come sooner than later.